The Bent Bonds/Antiperiplanar Hypothesis (BBAH) is a collaborative research project between Ghislain and Pierre Deslongchamps.
The BBAH is a conceptually novel orbital model for rationalizing the conformation and reactivity of organic molecules containing various types of unsaturation. The BBAH is based on the Slater-Pauling bent bond model (tau bond, 𝜏 bond) and the antiperiplanar hypothesis, a modern stereoelectronic concept, to describe electronic delocalization in unsaturated systems.
To date, the BBAH model has been successfully applied to the following:
- conformational analysis of alkenes and carbonyl compounds
- conjugation and aromaticity
- electrocyclic reactions
- Diels-Alder reaction
- sigmatropic alkyl and hydrogen shifts
- walk rearrangements
- cyclooctatetraene chemistry
- high-temperature isomerization of polycyclic aromatic compounds
- reactivity at anomeric centre of furansides and pyranosides
- stereocontrolled nucleophilic addition to α-chiral ketones and aldehydes
The development of the BBAH and its various applications are in peer-reviewed publications, and are in the process of being authored as educational articles in BBAH Blog posts.